Modi as NDA's PM candidate irks JD-U

The Narendra Modi factor has again returned to create tension between the BJP and JD(U), the ruling parties in Bihar. And this time it is talk of the Gujarat chief minister leading the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the next Lok Sabha election.

The Narendra Modi factor has again returned to create tension between the BJP and JD(U), the ruling parties in Bihar. And this time it is talk of the Gujarat chief minister leading the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the next Lok Sabha election.

The saffron party leadership in the state has gone into overdrive to put a lid on a row than broke out after Bihar health minister Ashwini Kumar Chaubey, a BJP member, reportedly declared at a public function in Surat that he expected Modi to be the NDA’s prime ministerial candidate in 2014.

State JD(U) president Bashistha Narayan Singh reacted by saying the remark was in “bad taste”.

The damage-control exercise followed.

BJP leader and deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi said on Tuesday the decision on the NDA’s prime ministerial nominee would be taken “only after taking the sensitivities of alliance partners into account”.

Subsequently, the Bihar deputy CM made a remark that promises to set off a debate in the BJP. He said: “The NDA’s prime ministerial candidate should be ... someone like Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was acceptable to both the Hindus and the Muslims.”

Chaubey has since denied that he had ever sought to project Narendra Modi as the NDA’s prime ministerial candidate.

In 2010, Narendra Modi could not campaign in Bihar before the assembly election because of opposition from chief minister Nitish Kumar.